By David Strickland, Vice President of Kenton Brothers
The Kenton Brothers Family is very excited about our new building. We thought we would give you a preview of the project and let you see what progress is being made. All facets of the new space are under construction and the look of the building is really taking shape. We can’t wait to invite you into our new home. We will be located at 3401 E Truman, Kansas City MO. See you there soon!
By Gina Stuelke, CEO of Kenton Brothers
After 46 years at the corner of 18th and Baltimore, and two prior locations on Walnut since our founding in 1897, Kenton Brothers Systems for Security is moving to the East side! We’re referring to the new location as KB Truman.
After a five year search for a new location, we finally found a location that meets all of our needs. 3401 East Truman Road in Kansas City, Missouri. Much like our experience of being a part of the transformation of the Crossroads District over a decade ago, we’re now joining in the transformation of the Truman Road corridor.
Our new location sits at the start of the Truman Community improvement district at Truman Road and Indiana streets. KB, along with many other local businesses, is excited about the future and the focus of bringing new companies to the area.
First and foremost, it needed to be centrally located in the KC city limits to continue serving our long time contractual clients like the City of KCMO and Jackson County. It needed to have easy highway access for our clients. And we needed our fleet of service trucks to be able to easily get to our location from a major interstate.
We required plenty of room for our existing team and the current needs of our organization, which is much more technology focused. We also need plenty of room for growth and expansion. And one more important addition to the have-to-haves list: PARKING. One of the biggest struggles we’ve experienced at our current location in the Crossroads District is the lack of parking.
KB partnered with long-time HEMP friend Jay Tomlinson of Helix Architects to design our new headquarters and create an environment to showcase the security industry’s state of the art technology. We selected Courtney Kounkel’s Monarch Build commercial general contractor to handle the renovation and birth of the new space. The team at Country Club Bank provided their expertise and the financing to make the transition to the new building easier.
We can’t wait to share more about KB Truman in the next couple of months. Things are coming together quickly and we can’t wait to move into our new space at 3401 East Truman Road.
By Will Zurcher, Installation Manager at Kenton Brothers
When most people hear the term “hacker” they picture a person sitting at home on their laptop controlling a system remotely. Because of this widely accepted generalization, individuals and companies spend countless dollars and resources to protect their “online” equipment from hackers. These precautions are vital… But have we forgotten to pay attention to the other vulnerabilities?
The first question that may come to mind is, “Why is a physical security company writing a blog about hacking?” So what role does Kenton Brothers play in protecting cyber-attacks? One of the main objective hackers have when attacking an enterprise, agency or institution is to gain physical access to the facility and stay there undetected. They understand that many cyber defenses can be bypassed by gaining physical access to hardware, software and networks. This focus has put access control systems in the cross hairs. Attackers have many tools that they will use to gain access to a building or network.
Using a combination of the above tools in phases allows hackers to gain access sometimes undetected.
So, what can be done to reduce the possibilities of hackers gaining physical access to your buildings?Attackers want to gain access in the easiest way possible. The harder we make it, the less likely they will continue to attempt to gain access. The most important thing to understand is that there will always be threats. Every device created for good can be used for evil. A constant focus on security will give you the best chance to catch breaches or take corrective action before they happen.
By the end of May 2018, we’ll be settled in our new location at 3401 E. Truman Road. It’s only three miles east of our current location in the Crossroads Art District, where we’ve been for the past 46 of the 120 years we’ve been in business.
Our new building is ten times the size, so we have ample room to accommodate our growing team, better serve our customers and offer plenty of convenient parking. The extra space is allowing us to:
Our new, larger location means more convenience for customers, from locksmiths who need locksets and hardware right away, to architects and engineers who want to see and specify certain security hardware. Once our staff and products are all at one location, our security products and services will be available faster than ever – no waiting for delivery!
The need for security is growing and will continue to increase as technology evolves. Our team and capabilities are growing right along with this evolution. We’ll miss our old neighborhood, but we’re looking forward to being a part of the growth and re-development in the Truman Road Corridor.
More details will be shared as we get closer to our moving date.
By David Strickland, Vice President of Kenton Brothers
One of the things we talk about all the time at Kenton Brothers is, “How do we educate our Customers on all the things we can do to support them”. We have thousands of customers that know us as a 120 year old Locksmith located in Kansas City. Their impression of us is that we are a tried and true locksmith organization with unparalleled experience and awesome technicians. However, they have no idea that we are one of the largest network based (IP) access control and video surveillance integrators in the Midwest. We also have thousands of network based (IP) access control and surveillance customers that are shocked to learn that we also integrate hundreds of mechanical and locking hardware systems every year.
Our goal is to show you the Power of the KB Pyramid and help you understand the complete Kenton Brothers solution.
The foundation of our pyramid is the mechanical locking hardware that we sell, install and maintain for thousands of customers all over the Midwest. No physical space is secure without the doors, frames and locking hardware that control access to the space.
The first step toward securing your people, property and possessions is through the use of a patent controlled and well managed masterkey system. Kenton Brothers creates and helps you manage your masterkey system through a web application that keeps the system organized.
Kenton Brothers can help your company maintain your legacy access and surveillance systems. We can also help you modernize and convert those legacy systems over to a modern system that takes advantage of newer technology, and reduce cost of ownership due to maintaining aging systems.
The powerful surge of IP based access control and video surveillance systems, and their continued development, has increased their capabilities well beyond the traditional role of security. These devices allow for advanced reporting, business process analysis, workflow management, liability and risk reduction and SIGNIFICANT RETURNS on personnel and financial investments. Kenton Brothers can help a business to plan, implement, and maintain a system as well as gather and implement the information the system produces.
The benefits of security and business process systems are dramatically increased if they’re able to integrate seamlessly into existing tools. Kenton Brothers provides services that tie together the best of class physical security and IP systems with common business process tools and other building automation systems.
Hosted and Managed services are designed to improve the speed to value for clients as well as reduce the resource load for system administration and monitoring. Kenton Brothers can host your IP based access control and Video surveillance systems and manage the day to day operation and administration of those systems.
Video analytics are advanced tools that dramatically improve the ability of IP based video surveillance systems to not just record but to help users prevent accidents, measure customer behavior, and catch would be offenders before something bad happens. These analytics include, infrared detection, facial recognition, License plate recognition, motion detection, point of sale, production counts and heat mapping.
Each of these systems on its own contributes to the security of your people, property and possessions. However, the Power of the Pyramid comes into play when all of these systems work well together. Kenton Brothers can help you create a plan that incorporates each level of the pyramid to reduce risk and increase security and protection.
Click here to download a PDF version of the Kenton Brothers Pyramid.
Kenton Brothers Systems for Security is a nationally certified Woman Owned Small Business Enterprise (WBENC). Being a member of this highly respected association enables both government and private organizations to fulfill requirements pertaining to minority contracts.
